"How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker."
Why bother writing an article on such a flawed study?
Blog author even calls this study "the most compelling evidence", only to correctly recognize that it's total shit in the final paragraph.
I'm all for writing an article on a bad study (sort of like a bad album review), but the opinion of the author should be clear from the outset.
Saying there was no proper control condition is flat wrong. There is a control in the study that would falsify the hypothesis that they were testing.
Suggesting that the mechanism for that result is caused by ice-breaking effects, or by delaying the time between the introduction and the request, or by conforming to some unknown social norm are follow up experiments you'd want to perform... but there's always a follow up question, it doesn't make the initial discovery flawed.